


The Nanny

by Valmouth



Category: RPF- Tennis
Genre: AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-21
Updated: 2009-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-04 21:36:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/34370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Valmouth/pseuds/Valmouth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rafael Nadal is not a tennis player. However, the nanny has been sent off in tears, and the children are too hard to handle with the duties of being World Number One and Roger needs help. It's Juan Carlos who suggests one Rafael Nadal, but it's Roger who decides that he doesn't particularly want him as a nanny.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Nanny

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cocodream](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=cocodream).



The meeting ended early, for which everyone was grateful.

It was a humid, hot and muggy day in Melbourne and the last thing the members of the Players Council wanted was to sit in a room and breathe recycled air as someone or other presented a motion that required them to both think and discuss.

Novak had cried off on the grounds of injury.

Roger would have cried off on the grounds that David Martin had a certain look about the eyes- one of those determined looks that meant a knotty issue was about to be presented. Unfortunately he couldn’t cry off; he was chairing the meeting.

And Roger took his position very seriously. He didn’t like to say that he was a shining example of how the number one player in the world should behave, of course. In his rather long and boringly groundbreaking career at the top, he’d experienced all the fallout of occasionally losing Grand Slams, occasionally losing his ranking, smashing one last racquet, firing coaches, getting back his ranking, getting married, getting children, getting divorced, breaking records and somehow embroiling himself in fashion concerns.

And worrying about the two little terrors back at the hotel.

Pierre was doing him a favour and watching them for him since they’d sent the nanny off in tears the day before. Well, they’d sent her off in a temper and Roger had sent her off in tears, after telling her exactly what he thought of her complaints about his daughters.

He was a little ashamed of that in the cold light of day.

Also, he was annoyed. The agency had called him first thing in the morning to say that they could no longer offer him the services of any their employees. Roger suspected that they really meant it. Which meant that he had to...

“Keep it for the next meeting, Davey,” Ashley said, and patted him on the back.

“Yeah, we’re missing some important voices,” Roddick said with a straight face.

Roger bit back the grin that threatened but he sighed inwardly and suggested that they all go away.

They barely waited for the words to leave his mouth before chairs were scraping back across the floor, people chattering amongst themselves, someone yawning and stretching shamelessly after an hour sitting still and listening to an old man drone about the eternal question of scheduling and ranking points.

It was Yves who ambled up to him, hands in his pockets and that sardonic smile tugging at the corners of his mouth as he prodded Roger in the shoulder to get his attention. 

“Good match against Gonzalez,” he said, “Maybe you can win Kooyong again this year.”

“I didn’t win last year.”

“You didn’t play last year.”

Roger raised his eyebrows but he didn’t bother to answer that.

“So,” Yves continued, “I heard about last night.”

Roger sighed. “Pierre told you?”

“Pierre? No, the girl who cleans my room. I’ve made friends with her.”

Roger snorted.

Yves offered to take him out for a drink, but Roger pointed out that he had to play his second round match the next afternoon. The way things were going, he sighed, he was going to have to send the girls back to Mirka and confess that he couldn’t handle them when he was on the tour.

Yves sighed too, but only because he’d been telling Roger for over a month that what Roger needed was a travelling nanny. Au pair. Governess, one of the English players called it, and why not. A woman who could travel with them and keep an eye on the girls when Roger had to practise, or compete, or go to photoshoots, or do a myriad of different things that came with the territory of being the World Number One.

“Why did you bring them on tour anyway?” he asked in amusement.

“I’m always on tour. If I don’t bring them, then when can I see them?” Roger replied.

Yves had to concede the point.

It was Juan Carlos though who really got the ball rolling. They met him at the tennis complex while he was sauntering off to get his racquets restrung, smug grin tugging at the corners of his mouth as he blandly signed an autograph for a star-struck teenager.

On sight of Roger Federer, Yves thought the girl might faint. He was past being bitter that no one really seemed to remember that he played the occasional game himself.

When they had managed to get rid of the girl- who walked away with three signatures and a palpitating heart- Juan Carlos grinned and said, “I heard about last night, Roger.”

“What?”

“Your daughters are very funny, no? They break some things, they make people cry. And they are not two! What will happen when they are four, huh?”

“Shut up,” Roger muttered, “How did you hear that?”

“I made friends with the girl who cleans my room.”

Roger rolled his eyes and shook his head. “All of you are mad. I’m going.”

“Wait.” Juan Carlos put out a hand to stop him and Roger looked down in surprise at the palm flat against his chest.

“I have something to help you,” Juan Carlos told him.

Five minutes later, Roger met Pierre and his two little girls at the canteen for lunch, tickling Myla to make her shriek with laughter as Charlene made round eyes at the rest of the players over her chair. In that same timeframe, Juan Carlos called Carlos Moya, who in turn called one Rafael Nadal.

At seven in the evening, Roger was sitting on the carpet in the middle of his suite, cleaning the remains of a banana off Myla’s face. Myla was sniffling. He was busy reprimanding Charlene, who was standing by with a sullen pout. And Pierre had left as soon as he could.

“You can’t push banana in your sister’s face,” he said sternly.

He sat back after the last scrap had been wiped off and regarded his injured daughter. Myla swiped her hand across her mouth and stared up at her father with tears still welling in her dark eyes.

Charlene dug her little toe into the thick carpet and sulked harder.

A knock came at the door and Roger got up immediately. He stared blankly at the wet and sticky cloth in his hand for a moment and then dropped it on the nearest table with a sigh. There was no point in hiding evidence behind the sofa cushions. He wiped his hands off-handedly on his jeans as he went to open the door.

“Yes?” he asked.

“Hi.”

Roger blinked. He’d been expecting a young man. He’d got that all right, but he hadn’t expected a bronzed young man who peered out from a boyish face framed in long, straggly hair and looked as if his suit didn’t quite fit his shoulders.

“Er,” he said.

“I am Rafael Nadal? We speak on the phone before,” the disconcerting image said.

“Yes, sorry. Come in.” Roger stepped back and waved him in, steeling himself to hide a mild form of surprise that he couldn’t explain. He wondered if Juan Carlos had made a mistake; this did not look like someone who took care of children for a living.

Rafael Nadal shifted to stare around briefly at the room, for all the world as if he had never seen a large, expensively appointed hotel suite. Roger waited patiently until those dark eyes turned back to him. It didn’t take long, merely a few seconds, and it gave him the time to observe a few things about this man who Carlos had recommended so highly.

He watched Rafael’s eyes rest on the two little girls staring up at him from their play mat, one still holding a red block in her left hand, and he watched while Rafael Nadal did nothing more than smile at them and then turn back to his prospective employer.

“They are very beautiful little girls,” Rafael said simply.

“Thanks. The one in blue is Myla. The one in pink is Charlene.”

“How old?”

“Eighteen months,” Roger said.

Roger was going to say something more but Rafael beat him to it- “Carlos say you need a manny.”

“Manny?”

“Is American word, no? Man nanny?”

“Oh, that. Yeah. The girl who took care of them left yesterday.” Roger made a mental note of the careful English.

“You need, um, papers? References?”

Belatedly Roger noted the slim file held in one large hand. “Yeah. Thanks.”

The police check was right behind the references.

It wasn’t so much that Roger needed the names listed on there; it was more to give himself some time to think. It had been borne in upon him that the agency would not send any more of their employees to look after his children. He could always go to another agency, and go through the whole process again for the sake of a couple of days more, depending, of course, on whether he won his upcoming match against Soderling.

It all depended on ‘if’.

He flipped the folder shut. “I don’t know how long I’m going to be in Melbourne,” he said honestly, “so I don’t know how long I’ll need you. I have to be here for the Australian Open but I can’t say definite dates, you know.”

Rafael nodded. “I understand. You play Soderling tomorrow, no?”

Roger had the feeling that those dark eyes had sharpened intensely. “Yeah. You worked for Moya. You know how you never know when you stay or go.”

“You think you can beat him?” Rafael asked.

Roger frowned slightly. “He’s a good player. You can’t underestimate him.”

“So you want me to take care of them tomorrow?” Rafael shot a look at the two little girls.

“If you can. We can have a trial for one day.”

That was when Rafael silently indicated that he would like to approach the two girls, who were still casting wary looks at him from their mat. Roger nodded. Rafael went to sit down a handspan away from the mat and, reaching one long arm out, he snagged two blocks.

“Hey,” he said softly, “What are your names?”

He aligned the blocks together and pushed them together with a frowned of concentration. The little click made a background noise as he looked up and grinned, “I am Rafael Nadal. Maybe we can play little while, no?”

Roger wasn’t sure about the language barrier. His daughters could speak and understand English but it wasn’t their first language. It didn’t sound like Rafael’s best language either. Which, he decided, might be problematic.

Rafael was turning the two blocks over in his large hands, pulling them apart and pushing them together, still chatting lightly.

Myla was the one who cracked first. She giggled when Rafael tried to balance the two blocks on his nose like a seal.

“Ah,” Rafael said triumphantly, “You laugh. You like that? You think is funny?”

She nodded her head and he held out the blocks to her. She took it from his hand.

Roger let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. It didn’t mean anything; he knew that. It would be a different matter entirely when Rafael was alone with them, and Charlene was regarding Rafael as if she didn’t believe him and didn’t plan to trust him. But it was something.

He smiled when Rafael said goodnight to the girls and stood up, waving a hand over his shoulder as he walked away from them.

“They are very nice,” he pronounced, and looked the proud father in the eye with what appeared to be genuine approval.

Roger wasn’t sure if, like his daughter, he could trust such obvious good will, but he did trust the references. And it would only be for one day, he reasoned. For one afternoon.

“Okay,” he said, and politely asked Rafael to take a seat. He offered him a drink. Once Rafael had refused, he said, “Do you want to know anything? I need to leave in the morning. Can you come then?”

“For sure. What is okay to do with them? They have no, er, no sickness? No allergy?”

“Nothing like that. Maybe just keep them here tomorrow. No sweets, you know, like the normal rules. They sleep in the afternoon.” Roger wracked his brains to think of how to describe it.

“They watch TV?”

Roger scratched the back of his neck and nodded. “Actually, if you have any problems with them, they like to watch this.”

He went to the television in the corner and surreptitiously raised a DVD case. All Rafael saw was a kaleidoscope of colour and then Roger had hurriedly stuffed it back in the unit where it couldn’t be immediately seen.

“What is that?” Rafael asked.

“The Wiggles,” Roger said wryly.

Rafael Nadal acquired the arrested expression of a man who was promising himself that he wouldn’t laugh. And to give him credit, he composed his features into a mask of such guileless sympathy that Roger was forced to grin and shake his head.

“Anything else?” he asked.

Rafael thought for a moment and then said, “What will they eat? Also, when I must feed them?”

“They eat at twelve. I’ll order room service to deliver it at twelve so you don’t have to worry,” Roger said.

And he was certain he saw a brief spark of something in Rafael’s dark eyes. Though he wasn’t entirely sure what.

The meeting didn’t last long after that. Charlene came to her father, one eye still watching for Rafael to turn into some kind of unpleasant surprise, and she insisted that he pick her up so she could whisper in his ear. What she said, Rafael was not privy to, but he caught the gist of it when Roger nodded and said that his girls were tired.

“If you can be here at eight tomorrow morning, that would be good,” Roger said.

And Rafael Nadal nodded. He waved again to Myla and Charlene, neither of whom waved back, and he left with a quiet goodnight to Roger.

Roger stared thoughtfully at the door for a moment, playing idly with a lock of Charlene’s hair as he mused on what the morning might bring.

 He found out soon enough; the morning brought Rafael Nadal at eight.  

“Hey.” He let him in.

“Hola. They are awake now?” Rafael asked over his shoulder.

Roger didn’t bother to reply because Rafael Nadal had crouched down at a safe distance and grinned hugely as he said good morning to Myla and Charlene. He was holding, Roger couldn’t fail to note, a stuffed giraffe.

“You both look pretty today,” Rafael was saying, “I say to Miguel here that you will play with him today. He no believe me so you say him, no? You can play with him today?”

He placed the giraffe on fuzzy legs on the floor and trotted him a few steps towards the girls.

Roger folded his arms and watched curiously.

“Aw, Miguel cry if no one play with him...”

Roger caught Charlene’s gaze over Rafael’s shoulder and he smiled encouragingly. She didn’t seem to take the hint.

“Never mind. We play with Miguel later.” Rafael laid down the stuffed giraffe and stood back up. He turned his head to glance back at Roger. “They eat breakfast?”

“I’ll feed them in a minute,” Roger said, “I have to change them first.”

“Okay.” There was a brief hesitation and then, “You have a match today. If you need to prepare for the match, I can maybe get breakfast...”

“No, I’m okay. I like doing stuff like that.”

“Ah, si. I wait here, then.”

Roger nodded. “I’ll show you where everything is first, then you know where to get it if you need it.”

“Okay.”

Rafael lifted a hand to tuck a heavy lock of hair behind his ear and Roger took him through into the girls’ room. There really wasn’t much to show him, but he knew from experience that there were little things that could be helpful. For one thing, Myla refused to sleep if she wasn’t wrapped up in her little patchwork blanket. And Charlene had a dummy that she still liked to suck when she was upset.

There were nappies and pins and powder and Roger had a severe attack of protectiveness as he watched a strange man pick through his daughters’ intimate requirements. He wondered if it was too late to run a check on Rafael’s police clearance.

On the other hand, Carlos had picked up nothing wrong with Rafael’s work.

Roger made a mental note to speak to Tony about it as soon as possible.

“And I told you about the DVD,” Roger ended, counting off everything he could think of on his fingers, “Look, when I’m playing, you can’t call me, but I will give you a number to call if there is an emergency. Or there is the police or ambulance or...”

“Roger,” Rafael said suddenly, “Roger, I take care of children before. It will be okay, no? Nothing will happen.”

The man was grinning. A wide grin, that showed off white, even teeth and raised already high cheekbones to scour lines in the corners of those dark eyes. It was an expression of supreme amusement.

Roger grinned back reluctantly, and not as fully. His pride registered a small amount of resentment at being laughed at. However a small voice at the back of his mind pointed out that there was nothing malicious in the way Rafael had patted him on the shoulder as he walked past him to the kitchenette.

The two girls were sitting at the table, propped up on two cushions each so they could reach. And Rafael joined them and launched back into his light chatter.

Roger went to change and gather his bags, one eye on the open doorway and ears straining to catch the slightest sound from the other side of the suite. Anything that could tell him when something was wrong. He almost ended up packing an evening shirt in consequence.

Pierre turned up at nine-thirty and Roger was reminded forcibly that he had work to do- conditioning first, to loosen his muscles and get him ready for his exertions on court. Tennis was serious business.

Rafael answered the door, taking Pierre’s surprise at this apparition in stride as he introduced himself and showed the man in.

Roger stuck his head out of the door. “I’ll be there in a minute,” he said in Swiss German.

Pierre nodded.

He took the opportunity for a quick look at the kitchenette and both girls seemed to be okay. The tears would come when he left them alone but there was nothing to be done about that.

When he was ready, with bag packed and nerves and determination setting in, he emerged. He went to find his girls, giving them a kiss and a hug each, murmuring to them in Swiss German that he loved them and that they had to be good until they came back.

They clung to him and he had to fight the already encroaching preoccupation with what he might find on the tennis court in order to reassure them.

“Rafael will look after you, okay?” he said, and hugged them again.

He let go determinedly and looked at Rafael. He was intending to give him a subtle hint that if anything went wrong he’d have his head, but Rafael wasn’t looking at him so much as the bag left sitting on the floor. Instinctively Roger’s gaze followed Rafael’s but all he saw was a normal sportsbag, big enough for several racquets and a few other necessities.

Rafael looked away and for just a split second, Roger could examine that strange unguarded expression on the man’s face.

The expression vanished a second later. “Good luck,” Rafael said.

Roger nodded. “I gave you the phone numbers if anything is wrong, right? I don’t know when I will finish, you know, but I will call when I can.”

“You have my number,” Rafael said neutrally.

It was an awkward parting but Roger wasn’t concentrating. Pierre asked about it when they were in the car but he merely shook his head impatiently.

“He’s taking care of Myla and Charlene,” Roger said, “He worked for Carlos Moya for a while.”

“Really?” A brief pause. “He doesn’t look like someone who takes care of children.”

Roger shrugged. “Many people don’t look like they do what they do.”

He won the match.

Not well, in his opinion, but he won it. And no one called to tell him that there was a problem. The minute he was off the court, he asked if there had been any calls from Rafael. Pierre shook his head.

It transpired that the day had worked out. Roger got back to find his two daughters kangaroo-hopping around the room, not coordinated enough to sustain it for long. They barely stopped long enough to give him a kiss.

Rafael looked sheepish as he came to an awkward stop not five paces away. “Hola,” he said, “Congrats for the match. We watch it on television.”

“Thanks. You watch much tennis, Rafael?” Roger asked lightly.

“Sure,” Rafael said, “I see you play Battle of Surfaces in Mallorca.”

“Oh God.” Roger dropped his bag negligently in the corner, unable to help a spark of humour as he recalled the less than pleasant results on his knees and back. “It was really bad to play on that court, you know.”

“I know,” Rafael said, “But you won.”

Roger, having turned his back on Rafael to get a glass of water, allowed himself a smirk. But he sobered up instantly. “It was fun,” he said obliquely.

Rafael made a sound of affirmation but he seemed distracted.

Roger turned around and saw Rafael stifling a laugh behind his hand as Charlene attempted to find out if she could balance on her head. She had her bottom up and her head down and she was wriggling with the effort to figure out how it worked. She was also oblivious to all attention she was getting.

“She is athlete, that one,” Rafael said suddenly, softly, “She has a good eye. I show them some exercise from when I play, and they think it is fun. But Charlene, she is hopping for two hours now. Myla stop and start and do the other things, no? Charlene will still hop.”

“Really?”

“Maybe you should give her coaching classes,” Rafael laughed.

Roger grinned but he shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t want them to feel they have to play, you know. It’s too hard if you have to think of your mother and father all the time.”

“Your wife was also tennis player.”

Roger didn’t appreciate probing questions, but Rafael hadn’t asked, merely stated. And anyway, the tabloids had already intruded enough into their privacy when the divorce came about.

“She did. You used to play tennis too?” he asked, picking up on Rafael’s earlier references.

“Yeah. Is how I know Carlos.”

Roger rubbed the back of his neck and looked at his watch. “If I go take a shower, can you watch the girls?”

“Sure. You go ahead. Yes, Myla?” Rafael looked down at the tug on his fingers. He squatted down and accepted the stuffed giraffe she pushed into his hands, looking more than happy to place the giraffe on his fuzzy legs and start him walking.

Roger went away while the going was still good, feeling guilty but thankful for the almost cool reception he’d received from his daughters. He loved them dearly but they were tiring, and he needed time to wind down after matches.

By the time he returned the girls had had a fight and Charlene was looking woebegone in the corner.

Roger scooped her up, murmuring little words of endearment in Swiss German against her hair as he crossed to the balcony.

It was still hot and muggy out there but there were clouds gathering. They were predicting rain at night and Roger weighed the pros and cons of taking the girls out for a walk while it was still possible. Melbourne weather was always suspiciously volatile.

The minute he sat down, Myla came up to take her share of attention, only to have Charlene reach out and smack her in retribution.

A wail went up and Roger had to put the both of them on the ground and speak crossly. He was all too conscious of Rafael observing them all from inside.

But Rafael said nothing, and if Roger felt self-conscious, then Rafael offered no sign of having any opinion on the matter at all. Instead, when Roger brought them both inside, he asked politely if Roger needed anything else.

“Can you come tomorrow morning again? Just the morning.”

“So I do okay for the one day?” Rafael grinned.

“What?”

“Never mind. Okay. I will be here tomorrow. At eight?”

“At nine.”

“At nine. Goodnight, Roger. Bye bye, Myla. Bye bye, Charlene.”

Having waved his goodbyes and blown a kiss to the girls, he vanished out the door and Roger regarded his two daughters thoughtfully.

“You like Rafael?” he asked seriously.

“Rafel,” Myla said with a hiccup, and she told him seriously about the ‘big hus’ and ‘Migey’.

Roger had no idea what she was talking about. But he made encouraging noises and decided that it was too hot to take them anyway. So he hit upon the idea of calling Mama, who asked Roger how he was coping.

“Okay.”

“Tony told me that you won,” the disembodied voice said, “Congratulations.”

“Thank you. How are you?”

“Fine. I’m busy, so I don’t have a lot of time.”

“I’ve heard that line before, Mirka,” Roger remarked, but he managed to say it without rancour. They had achieved an easy truce. “Anyway, I have to go. I’m taking some pretty ladies to dinner tonight.”

Mirka chuckled. “Don’t order steak for them, okay?”

“I don’t order steak for me. Why will I give it to them?”

“Bye, Roger.”

“Bye.”

The rest of the evening was mundane in comparison. The hotel tried to make sure that Roger Federer was not bothered, and that his daughters were kept safe. It was part of their policy in luring him back again the next year. And Roger appreciated it. He appreciated the privilege that came with success but he wasn’t always comfortable with the attention.

Anna Wintour, for example. Her esteem was both gratifying and terrifying, and Roger always had the urge to fidget with his cuffs whenever he saw her. But Anna was in New York. For which he was eternally grateful. In Melbourne, he concentrated on keeping cool and comfortable and private.

The girls were asleep almost before he could get them to bed. They were curled up on the couch with their heads on one cushion, Charlene with her thumb in her mouth and Myla with her arm around her sister.

He put them to bed and it was a relief to have a little quiet in the suite.

The next morning he woke up groggy and vaguely sore, fighting back a slight twinge in his hamstrings as he got the girls up and dressed for the day.

Halfway through it all, Rafael arrived. Roger greeted him with soap on his chin and a towel over his shoulder but he waved him in with nothing more than a quick smile.

“Excuse me,” he said rapidly, “They might just drown themselves.”

And with that cryptic remark, he jogged back inside.

Rafael shrugged philosophically to himself; he was early, he was patient and he wasn’t averse to occupying himself for a few minutes more. He anticipated that he’d have little enough peace for the rest of the morning as it was.

He hadn’t told Roger, but Charlene had sat at the door the day before and howled for almost an hour when she realized that she was alone with a stranger. The only thing that had finally pacified her was Rafael’s desperate bribery with sweets. Given that Roger had said ‘no sweets’, Rafael was inclined to think it best to keep that story to himself.

So he occupied himself by going out onto the balcony. He whistled at the view, still rather obscured by the downpour, but a sudden yell of ‘Rafel’ behind him made him turn around and go back inside.

Myla was looking clean and pink and ready to roll around on the carpet. She was also dragging  
Miguel the stuffed giraffe behind her by the tail.

Rafael spared a pang of sympathy for the giraffe.

“They need to eat,” Roger said shortly, “I woke up late.”

“I can do,” Rafa said quickly, and then wondered if he had made a mistake.

Roger had shot a sudden, wary look at him, two melamine bowls in hand, as if he suspected Rafael of something stupid. But then he smiled slightly, and handed the bowls over.

“You know where...”

“I know,” Rafael interrupted, “I look for coffee yesterday. Go.”

“Thanks, Rafael.”

“Hey, Roger.”

Roger looked back and Rafael didn’t particularly seem to be hinting anything when he said, “My friends call me ‘Rafa’. Is short to say, no? More easy.”

Roger turned the word around in his head, taking in the broken-in jeans and orange sweatshirt. Rafa still looked vaguely damp from coming in out of the rain and somehow... “Okay. Rafa.”

And then he turned away to get ready. From the table, he clearly heard Charlene pipe up- “Rafa.”

\------------------------------------

Things settled into a pattern after that. Roger was not surprised by how handy it was to have someone look after the children. What he was surprised at, particularly on that second morning, was that Rafael- Rafa- would endeavour to make himself useful in other ways.

Roger wasn’t sure how to take that at first.

Rafa washed dishes, made beds, arranged to have the laundry done, and happily did anything for the girls that Roger asked of him. If Roger wanted to do it himself, he had only to say so and Rafael would immediately concede.

And Roger was certainly grateful for that.  He didn’t have much time to do the things he wanted to do; he was struggling to find his rhythm in Melbourne.

Pierre had taken a look at his troublesome hamstring and had cleared him to play. Roger had chosen to interpret his fitness adviser’s slight purse of the lips as meaning that he needed to play intelligently, instead of merely being wherever the ball was.

And one evening, when he was reviewing his match with Baghdatis, he felt a large, familiar presence just behind him.

He didn’t need to crane his head too far back; he knew Rafa had been watching over his shoulder for twenty minutes so far.

On television, he was looking blank-faced but tense as Marcos clawed back to deuce with a perfect crosscourt forehand.

“Good shot,” Rafa said, “But he hit it like flat, no? Never... never here.” And he demonstrated the point, eyes squinting slightly with the need to express what he meant in a language he wasn’t fluent in.

Roger twisted his neck awkwardly this time, craning around to see Rafa better. “You played left-handed?” he asked, looking astonished.

 “Yeah.”

“I didn’t notice you were left-handed.”

Rafa shook his head and grinned sheepishly. “I am right-handed. But when I was little, I can play both hands, no? So my uncle say to me that left hand can be tricky for opponent, so I choose left hand.”

“He was right. Fernando Verdasco plays left-handed,” Roger added as an afterthought.

“Si. But he never... he never step into the ball? Always he hit side to side to side, but never in here, where is hard for opponent to return.” Rafa swiped through the air, palm flat and fingers stiffly held together to denote the flat of a tennis racquet.

Roger blinked. Rafael sounded like he understood the details of what he was talking about.

All of a sudden, Roger found himself trying to imagine what kind of a figure Rafa would have made on court. Looking at the powerful, sweeping arms and picturing them wielding a racquet, he wondered if he wouldn’t have been a little dangerous.

But then Rafa grinned and dropped his arm loosely to his side. “Sorry,” he said, “I will shut up. You watch the match.”

“It’s fine. You are welcome to watch the rest of the match with me.”

It was Rafa’s turn to look a little surprised. And more than a little pleased.

If, during that match, Roger snuck a few quick looks at Rafa, he put it down in his own head to curiosity. Because by now he was very curious about the man.

His curiosity, however, did take a back seat to his preparations for the Australian Open. Roger having lost at Kooyong in the semi-finals, his focus shifted to the Grand Slam. He’d lost the year before, and the year before that, and the threatening tide of young players were only increasing as each year slipped through his fingers.

Severin had set up programs and strategies and Roger picked and chose what he wanted. Occasionally he asked Rafa what he thought about them, if only to satisfy his curiosity. And Rafael, being somehow intensely honest, gave him his full opinion in triplicate complete with hand actions and examples.

Severin had almost had a heart attack when he’d got to Roger’s suite and found his knock answered by a bronzed young man in a sleeveless tshirt and a mop of dark hair tied back. Rafael had had Myla balanced on his hip.

“Yes?” he’d asked.

“Hi Rafael,” Pierre had said casually, “Roger is here?”

“Ah, si. He say that Severin is coming. You are Severin Luthi, no? Hi.” Rafael had stepped back to let them in, and then courteously held out one large hand to Severin.

“This,” Pierre had told his companion, “Is Roger’s manny.”

And Rafael had grinned unabashedly and squeezed Severin’s fingers.

“I think,” Severin later told Roger, “I’ve seen him somewhere before.”

“He worked for Moya for six months,” Roger suggested, “Maybe you saw him on the tour then.”

Tony, on the other hand, seemed to be entirely unaffected. Mirka seemed more relieved than shocked to hear that Roger had some help. And when Severin saw no heads turn at the players’ lounge, he was forced to swallow the nagging sense of discordance that plagued him when Rafael was around.

Not five minutes into entering the players’ lounge, Feliciano Lopez made his way over with a grin. “Rafa,” he yelled, and embraced the man tightly.

The rapid-fire dialogue in Spanish made Team Federer look at each other in a little surprise but when David Ferrer and Juan Carlos loped across to join the two, Roger felt compelled to get one last word in. He knew the Armada too well to wait for much longer.

“Hey,” he said, interjecting as politely as he could. Without even thinking he placed a hand on Rafa’s shoulder to get his attention, leaning in to speak softly at his ear though the words were not a secret. “Raf, I’m going to go practise. Tony is taking the girls to see the exhibition but they will get tired soon. Can you take them back to the hotel later?”

Rafa tensed a little. “Oh, sure,” he said, “When?”

“Before lunch.”

It was already nine.

Rafael nodded and smiled. Let Roger go and turned back to his friends with the exhortation that he had work to do so they’d better be quick and tell him how they were. Roger walked away wondering if he’d actually seen resentment and a quick burst of bitterness on Rafa’s face.

It was later that he understood, but only because it was later that he saw Rafael again. Tony and the girls were with him, except that Rafael was on the wrong side of the barrier. He was standing at the edge of the practise court with David Ferrer, chatting to Tony about something that required him to point to where Andy Murray was warming up.

Roger dragged his concentration back to his own game, and he succeeded in forgetting what was going on anywhere else. He ignored the fans, the agents, the other players, the coaches, and yes, if he needed to he could ignore his own daughters.

The next time Roger glanced at the other practise court- to look for Myla and Charlene, he told himself- Rafa was actually on the court with a borrowed racquet and a cap on back-to-front. He was serving, and Roger wasn’t aware that he was holding his breath until he saw the racquet whip overhead. 

Roger was so intent on the tableau that Severin sailed a ball right past him. He thought he saw Andy trip over his own feet.

The Armada didn’t look particularly shocked. They were busy cheering and clapping. Feliciano was holding one of the twins in his arms and pointing out various things to her while Tony stood by and tried to stop the other one from tumbling out of his arms while trying to do a backflip. Myla with Feliciano, Roger thought dazedly, and Charlene with Tony.

And Rafa was playing against Juan Carlos.

For a brief moment, Roger thought he saw what he had imagined would be there- power.

It didn’t last more than a few hits, a couple of volleys. Rafael was running for a ball dropped gently over the net when his right leg buckled. He didn’t fall but Juan Carlos moved towards the net as if concerned for his opponent.

Rafa lifted a hand and waved him back. The next moment he jogged stiffly, slowly, back to the baseline and handed the racquet back to Feliciano in exchange for Myla. He took the cap off his head with a grin and plopped it down on her head.

Roger belatedly turned back to his own practise session and saw Severin watching him with a strange expression on his face.

Roger smiled and shrugged apologetically.

Severin shook his head and asked sarcastically if they should continue. Roger was surprised and not a little annoyed. Good humour vanished for the day under a wave of determination, and as such he had no chance to think any further about it until he was in the car on the way back to the hotel.

He leaned his head exhaustedly back and wished ruefully that he hadn’t been quite so brusque with Severin. They had been friends for years; had survived living in an apartment together and Roger respected that he wasn’t an easy person to live with. Luckily, neither was Severin.  

 He grinned at the memory of the tiny flat with sneakers in the middle of the floor and the sports pages perpetually strewn across every table in the house. It wasn’t as if they’d ever actually read the rest of the newspaper.

Roger chewed his lip as his thoughts shifted, bringing back the image of Rafa’s serve. It hadn’t been clean, and it hadn’t been perfect. What it had been was rusty and ungainly, as if Rafa hadn’t served in a long time. Which, Roger estimated, he possibly hadn’t.

He got back to the hotel suite and found the girls watching the Wiggles. They seemed to have retreated into their respective shells; Charlene was sucking her dummy again. Roger tried to withdraw it gently but she whimpered and fussed and growled until she got it back.

He sighed and let her keep it.

On the television screen, a big green monster was singing about roses.

He found Rafa in the girls’ room, straightening up, and he opened his mouth to say hello. He was certain that Rafa knew he was there; he’d made enough noise when he entered the suite. But for some reason the words dried up, and he could only lean against the door frame and watch, taking in the rounded hunch of Rafa’s shoulders as he bent over the sheets on the bed.

Roger wracked his brains to remember if he had ever heard the name- Rafael Nadal; it wasn’t a difficult name to forget.

Rafa reached up a hand and pushed the hanging sweep of hair out of his face and behind his ear.

“You should tie it up,” Roger suggested, “Or cut it.”

Rafa didn’t seem surprised to see him standing there. He’d been aware of his arrival: Roger knew that somehow.  

“I saw you on the tennis court.”

“Yeah? I bring the girls straight here after. They eat now and then they can sleep. Is no problem, no?”

It was the same expression Roger had seen back at the complex- resentment and bitterness.

Even as he recognized it, it fell away. Rafa straightened up and sighed. He ran his hand through his hair again, and then he rubbed the back of his neck, as if it helped the words if his hands were constantly in motion.

“My knees are,” he shook his head, “No good to play professional tennis. The doctors say I maybe play two or three years. But then I need treatment, maybe surgery, maybe replace the knee when I am older, no? I play for one year in the ATP. One year.”

 “How did you injure it so badly in the juniors?” Roger asked.

Rafa shrugged. “I don’t know. But I do okay in the juniors. I meet Carlos and he is kind. He tells me how to be better. But if my knee is no good, my shots can be great but I can’t run. So I leave.”

Roger folded his arms briefly, wondering what to say to something like that. It wasn’t an uncommon story. At any rate, it was better than half the other stories of the ATP- those who played but never won, those who put their hearts on the line and never got anywhere. Or the others after that, who won sometimes but only enough to be talented and never successful.

From his safe, successful point of view, it seemed that Rafa could still maintain some dignity in knowing that it hadn’t been a lack of talent that had sidelined him. And there were worse ways the body could break down. Roger thought of Mario Ancic, forever battling one setback after another.

“Hey,” he said, “You want a drink?”

Rafa looked startled. “You have Grand Slam in three days. You drink before then?”

Roger shrugged. “One glass of wine. It can’t hurt.”

“Empty calories,” Rafa commented.

“Pierre will get them off me.” Roger jerked his head to the door, beckoning Rafa to follow him.

For Rafael, the rest of the day passed in an almost dreamlike state. He put it down to the half bottle of wine he consumed in under an hour, but he stopped himself from drinking any more when Roger picked up the girls and carried them to bed one at a time. There was a football match on TV and ordinarily, Rafa would have been dissecting every kick, every feint, every tackle. Normally, he would have bitten his nails and pumped his fist and controlled the urge to cheer loudly for whomever he thought was the better team.

For that day, he wasn’t particularly interested in football.

“You’re falling asleep too,” Roger observed.

Rafa tried to hide the yawn behind his hand but there was no point arguing.

Roger sat on the floor. “Sleep on the couch. The noise won’t disturb you, right?”

Rafa blinked. “No. I think I should go home.”

“If you want. You don’t need to come here tomorrow. I’ll take the girls out to the park for one day.”

“Before the Grand Slam?”

“They haven’t had time to play outside for some time,” Roger said reasonably, “I’ll take them in the morning and I’ll train in the evening.”

“Okay.”

And Rafa was halfway to the door before Roger piped up suddenly from behind him- “Unless you want to come to the park? The girls will like that.”

Rafa paused, and the look he gave Roger was wary. Almost confused. And then he smiled faintly. “The park, huh? We can play football?”

“With those two?” Roger shot an eye in the general direction of where two eighteen month old toddlers were fast asleep.

“Of course,” Rafa said, as if it were the most reasonable idea in the world, “I take Charlene.”

“Nein. They are my daughters, you know, I get to pick first.”

“Fine. Myla runs faster.”

“I didn’t choose yet.”

“Either way, we beat you.”

Roger was grinning now, finding the sudden shift in mood infection. “You know, I could have played football if I wanted.”

Rafa raised an eyebrow. “Me too. Also, my uncle play for Mallorca, Barca and Spain. So you think it mean anything?”

“Okay. We play tomorrow. Ten o’clock?”

“Okay.”

By the time the door shut, Roger was on the verge of laughing in sheer enjoyment. He was tired, feeling even the small amount of alcohol in his system, and he wondered if he wasn’t sinking into something that was going to lead to trouble.

Still, he took the girls out that evening to buy a football. Just because. And when Charlene was kangaroo-hopping around the living room, Roger put on the Wiggles and kangaroo-hopped with her.

It was easy to get caught up in one last act of contained unpredictability. They played football, and Roger asked the rest of his retinue if they wanted to have a picnic. Severin asked Rafael about his knees and Pierre launched into a long conversation about the complexity of knee troubles and how to treat them. Roger watched Charlene play at being a tiger in the grass of the Botanic Gardens and tried to stop Myla from picking the flowers.

He remembered that Mirka had threatened to do the same once, mischief flickering in her eyes as she’d tried to step into the flowerbeds, knowing that he’d yank her away with both arms around her waist.

The girls were asleep by the time they got back to the hotel so Rafa helped Roger carry them up. It seemed appropriate somehow that he stay for a while. They didn’t talk but they did watch the football match on television. When it was over, Rafa left.

A couple of days later, Roger watched while Rafa made coffee and then said, “I spoke with Carlos today. He says you are a good hitting partner.”

Rafa grimaced. “Carlos think I am some charity case to be sorry for,” he snapped.

Roger looked surprised.

“Sorry. Say what it is.”

“I wanted to know if you could come out and hit with me maybe this evening. The hotel has a private court we can use.”

“No.” Rafa said it simply.

“Why?”

“Because I no like to play when my knees hurts. Also, you have Severin.”

“Look, there are some left-hand players coming into my draw, you know, and I just want to see if I can get into rhythm for it.”

Rafa blinked. He didn’t answer right away but then Roger had taken a bet that the excuse would be believable enough.

“Okay,” Rafa said hesitantly, “If you think it will be for help.”

“I won’t make you run,” Roger said, and he got a grateful look in return.

The plan was to get Rafa to play a variety of shots around the court, mostly with the aim of letting Roger test how the angles shifted. Severin came in to coach from the sidelines and Rafael looked both nervous and frustrated as he got back the hang of it.

What Roger had been intending was to have Rafa stand in a moderately small square of ground on the other side of the net and just hit him shots. What Roger had been expecting was that he would have to do all the running-around. What Roger got was more than he bargained for.

It began innocently enough. Roger mishit a return and was on the point of raising his hand in apology when Rafa had already moved into position to keep it in play. Roger returned it to the box but the square began to widen. And Rafa began to push his game.

Roger shot Severin a look but his friend merely grinned and gestured, as much as if to say that he’d got himself into it and had better deal with the consequences.

Rafa was working himself up. Roger held himself in check at first but it was strangely infectious. Like most of Rafa’s emotions, he seemed to find some sort of answering thrill in his own blood. Perhaps it was because he didn’t like to lose. Even in fun, to a friend. Roger couldn’t say for certain. All he could say was that he stopped being quite so careful.

And then Rafa called a halt.

“What?” Roger asked.

 And then he saw it as Rafa walked up to the net- Rafa was limping. “Shit,” he said, “Sorry.”

“Is okay,” Rafa dismissed, “You have better rhythm now?”

“Yeah. Thanks. Hey, you were good.”

“I am slow and I have no practise,” Rafa laughed, “but thank you. Can I sit now?”

“Of course. Sev, you want to pay best of five?”

And Rafa watched from the sidelines.

Roger hadn’t been joking when he’d offered a few words of praise. Rafa had been good. And maybe at one time he had been able to make the shots he tried to play so ambitiously. Still, he had a powerful forehand and Roger had seen Top Twenty players with worse backhands.

The idea fermented at the back of his mind until one day he merely said, “You never want to go on the tour again? Like a coach or a hitting partner or something.”

“I can no coach and I am no good for hitting partner. You saw. I have no practise now.”

“What do you do if you don’t play?”

Rafa grimaced. “I work with my father. He has some business.”

Roger traced a line on the counter top. “Severin sometimes can’t  fly to where I am.” And in that moment, he could have bitten his tongue out.

Rafa didn’t answer immediately. When he did, he did it neutrally- “You are asking me to travel with you?”

“Maybe, if you like the idea. We can try it.”

“How long you have the girls, Roger? One month more maybe? Why I should come with you?”

“I want to travel with the girls, you know, and you understand how the tour is. You know tennis. You like tennis, so maybe you will not get bored. ” Roger offered a quick smile. “You are good help.”

Rafa smiled back, but he said, “Maybe you ask me after you play the Australian Open, Rogelio.”

“Rogelio?”

“Funny name. I like it.”

Roger shook his head. “I am your employer, you know. You should respect me.”

Rafa blew a raspberry.

So the idea was sidelined. Roger would have pressed the issue but the absurdity of the situation asserted itself. He had already talked himself into making half-offers; he meant to leave it there while he still had the time to reconsider.

They said nothing more about it, and Roger waited in resignation for Rafael to give any indication that he found the whole situation had too awkward for him. Surprisingly, that never happened. What did happen was that Rafa kept the nickname.

Roger was taken aback at first but Rafa didn’t seem to mean anything malicious by it so he cautiously allowed it. And then the touches started. Roger blamed it entirely on the Australian Open. The morning of his first match, Rafa turned up at the door and shook the damp and drizzle off his head as he suddenly said, “You will win. He has no backhand.”

“He’s a good player. I can’t underestimate him.”

“Si. But also everybody know you are better.” Rafa punched him lightly on the arm.

Roger grinned and patted Rafa’s shoulder back. When he came back victorious, the girls didn’t seem to care, but Rafa had a curious gleam in his eyes that Roger wondered about until he realized it was victory, absorbed vicariously from him.

He saw almost the same gleam in his own eyes that night as he washed his face in the bathroom and steeled himself for the next round.

Round after round after round- tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. Roger booked his place in the quarterfinals without dropping a set. That was when he had to sit back and take stock. He was up against Verdasco, who wanted his first Grand Slam as much as Roger wanted his seventeen. Perhaps more. And Verdasco was left-handed. Roger would not admit to nerves, but he was worried.

Rafa agreed to one more practise session, and once more they ended up sparring. Severin said later that it looked like ping-pong with both of them at the baseline trying to out-hit each other. Roger won.

Rafa was clearly frustrated, but he met Roger at the net with what seemed like genuine enjoyment. Roger, in a parody of mimicking the grand final of a Grand Slam, stuck out his hand and gravely told Rafa that he had played well.

Rafa shook his hand at first, enjoying the spectacle of Roger being goofy. And then dark eyes laughed at Roger and Rafa took his proffered hand and used it to pull Roger into a hug.

“I lose to World Number One,” Rafa said in his ear, “That is good.”

Roger was initially shocked, and didn’t quite know what to do with his hands, but then he gave in and chuckled, and placed a careful hand between Rafa’s shoulder blades. The sweat-damp sleeveless t-shirt was sticky and unpleasant but somehow it felt fitting.

Rafa let go and Roger stepped back, smiling and a little flushed at the unexpected contact.

And then his smile faltered. He saw something- just a brief gleam- and he couldn’t immediately believe it but he knew what it was. He didn’t elaborate any more than that, even to himself. He forced a more normal smile to his lips instead and thanked Rafa for his time.

Rafa looked confused but nodded.

Roger won his match against Verdasco from two sets down. He had to fight to concentrate, to push away the mental image of a figure in a sleeveless t-shirt on the other side of the net, thundering shaky power back at him no matter how hard he hit. Verdasco was powerful, but he was not Rafael.

At the net, Roger almost expected an embrace but Verdasco merely put an arm around him, patting his back as he leaned closer to whisper his obligatory congratulations.

Roger found himself thinking that the man didn’t feel right. A left-hander but nowhere close to the same angles.

And it was then that it hit him like a tidal wave- the feeling he had had, right at the start, that he was sinking into trouble. He was definitely in trouble; he didn’t know how else to describe it. He almost missed hearing what Pierre said as he started for the locker room, he was so intent on denying the sudden insight.

But he couldn’t afford that luxury. There was media to confront, and Roger sat before them feeling raw and somehow unbalanced, answering questions that he considered irrelevant and irritating, yet dreading any questions that might hint- suggest, nick- at the bare bones of what he was only just beginning to contemplate.

Roger was, in short, dumfounded. Somewhere along the way, he’d let one Rafael Nadal into his family and into his life, and it was suddenly bearing down upon him that he didn’t want to lose him just yet.

He wanted Rafael- Rafa- to...

“Stay for a little longer,” Pierre said, “There are some things we need to go over.”

“I’m tired and Charlene has a cough,” Roger lied. He left without a word or a wave goodnight, too busy on the sudden barrage of images that passed in front of his horrified yet fascinated mind’s eye.

He could recall with perfect clarity the evening that Rafa had turned up at his door. He could even recall the smell of smashed banana invading the entire room just before he opened the door to a young man who looked as if his suit didn’t fit right.

Rafa playing football; Rafa and the stuffed giraffe. Rafa and Myla and Charlene. The girls liked him. Rafa and the other Spanish tennis players. Rafa and tennis.

Roger wasn’t sure what sort of business Rafa’s father did, but he wasn’t sure that Rafa looked like a businessman any more than he looked like a nanny.

Roger shut his eyes and thumped his head back against the seat of the car in frustration. It didn’t help. He could almost feel the weight of Rafa’s arm around his shoulder, the hard press of his body across a net as Rafa laughed at him and called him Rogelio.

Rogelio.

Roger stifled a groan and didn’t know what to think. And then he got home.

Home was always Basel or Dubai. If it had to be a hotel suite, then it was the Federer Suite in Montreal. But the hotel suite in Melbourne was beginning to hold a little too much intimacy to be a plain hotel room.

Roger opened the door quietly, almost with the hope of not confronting what he was certain he would have to confront. He didn’t have much luck on that front. He couldn’t remember the last time he had cursed his luck on the same evening as he entered the semi-finals of a Grand Slam, but he did.

Rafa looked up and grinned as he dumped a heap of blocks into a box and then jammed the lid on it with a flourish. “Hey,” he said softly, “Congratulations.”

“I played well in the third set,” Roger agreed, “It took me some time to get into it but I think I did okay after that.”

Rafa got up and came up to him, forehead creasing as if he wasn’t sure about something. “Roger, you look not well,” he said, eyes roaming over Roger’s face.

Roger opened his mouth to say something. He intended to say something. He thought back to the Player’s Council meeting when he had had nothing to say, and he shut his mouth. He wondered if Rafa could see the sudden look in his eyes but he didn’t particularly care.

He contemplated pulling Rafa into a hug, or better yet into a kiss, but Roger could not make himself cross that last hurdle over into madness. Instead he looked his fill, and gave Rafa the opportunity to see it as clearly as he had.

Surprisingly, Roger didn’t particularly care about Rafa’s masculinity. Well, he did, but the separation of the tour seemed more important. Roger had a feeling that there would be stress about how it worked or what it meant or whether it could last, but for the moment there was nothing but exhilaration. Almost, he thought, like winning an important match.

He briefly wondered how Mirka would react.

“Roger?”

 “I want to ask again if you can come on tour with me, Rafa.”

“Ah si. I think about that. I like looking after the girls, of course, but...”

“No. The girls are going back to Mirka, in Basel.” He was certain that he saw a spark of something in Rafa’s eyes.

“Ah, then you still think I can be hitting partner. No. I say you before, I...”

“Severin can’t play left-handed,” Roger said flatly, “And I like to talk to you about tennis.”

Rafa’s mouth opened and closed for a moment and then he began to step back.

Roger’s hand shot out and gripped the front of Rafa’s nondescript shirt. The fingers dug into the entirely unexceptional fabric and then Roger pulled. He made it a point to pull Rafa as close as he could get him, and he leaned closer to be heard.

“I want you,” he whispered. And this time the spark flared up until all he was aware of was the fact that he was staring into Rafa’s eyes watching his pupils dilate.

It was Rafa who leaned forward first. It was Rafa who cupped Roger’s jaw carefully in one large hand and then kissed him.

“Maybe,” Rafa said, “Maybe I think about the tour. But first you must win Australian Open, no?”

“Fuck the Open,” Roger growled, and yanked him back into a kiss.


End file.
